


heartbeat.

by upon_a_girl



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: A little, Alternate Universe - Mob, Angst, Assassin Oliver Queen, BAMF Felicity Smoak, Dark, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Historical AU, Hurt Oliver, Love, Mentions of Violence, Protective Oliver, Sexual Tension, Slave!Oliver, i guess, ish, softies, who would have thought
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 10:32:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17702705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/upon_a_girl/pseuds/upon_a_girl
Summary: It‘s the early 19th century. He‘s a slave, with a face as cold as stone but with eyes as hot as lava. She’s the niece of his new master.She’s the sheltered “little” girl. She’s bright, he is dark. But where there is light, there is dark too, and not only he is a man with a story, she isn’t all what you can see too. And between war and work, between punishment and pain, between good manners and no word, they reach out to each other.





	heartbeat.

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t believe it’s happening - I actually managed to grab my fears and anxieties and pack them up in a small box and throw it into the last corner of my mind (or as I like to pretend...) and now I’m standing here in front of you (sitting really) and present you the one and only prologue to “heartbeat.”  
> It’s a story of many firsts for me (so be gentle), not only the first fanfiction in this fandom and about Olicity, but also the first multichapter story I undertake to write in english, and the first in general after a long time of running away from words. (words can be scary.)
> 
> And now without further ado... the prologue!  
> Fin xx
> 
> p.s.: I'd love to hear from you (but then who doesn't) - reviews feed the soul.  
> also come say hi to me on twitter (@upon_a_girl)
> 
> {I neither own the characters (sadly) nor the existing story, only my chaotic mind.}

 

 

HEARTBEAT.

 

 

"Don't fight to die. Fight to live." - Felicity Smoak

 

 

***

1\. Prologue

 

It always narrows down to it, in the end, to the heartbeat, the thing in your chest that pumps blood through your veins and tells you that you're still alive. The ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, day in, day out. The thing that keeps working against so many odds, just keeps pumping, no matter what day it is or how you feel or what happens right in front of you. The one certainty.

 

***

 

**England, September 1804  
**

The first time Oliver lost a fight, his heart skipped a beat and stuttered and hurt, but he knew it had to beat on, it had to keep pumping the blood through his veins, it had to keep up the ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom.

No, not for him, for his baby sister. He had seen his mother's eyes, pained, pleading, raw, stripped bare of any pretense, leaving only naked fear about her children, even when she lay bleeding on the ground.

Drip drop, drip drop.

Her blood seeped, red, red into the hey, like the tears that wet his face, and her killer laughed and cackled and then reached for the sharp, long blade in her chest.

And Oliver tried to shake off the paralyzing fear and lifted the hay fork again for another try, his jaw clenched, his knees trembling, his throat dry and closed up, until he caught his mother's eyes. No scream escaped her lips, no cry, only her pained but narrowed eyes, focused, that pierced into his soul, and a hardly visible head shake. _Don't, Oliver. Take your sister and run. Save her._

And so he took a deep, trembling breath and then turned around and snatched his innocent baby sister, turned away from his mother, his _dying_ _mom_ , and ran, ran, ran, away from the blood and the death, away from the burning barn and the destroyed house and other crying, desperate neighbours, but also away from home and safety and childhood.

Away from love and away from light.

Oliver didn't know how long he ran with little Thea on his back, racing away, away, away, not once stopping for the hysterical cries of his sister or his cramping lungs or the pain in his heart. It still did its ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, echoing in his ears, and so he ran on and on and on and faster and faster, until his arms trembled and his legs trembled and he swayed.

Only then did he stop and broke down on the side of a field. Only then did he pull little Thea into his arms and gave in to his pain and his tears and the shuddering sobs that slowly wracked his frame.

 

***

 

**England, November 1804  
**

Oliver never cried again after that fateful day, that took his home and his childhood in a blink.

But he worried. Oh, how Oliver worried.

But he didn’t worry about whether it would rain the next day and be too muddy to play ball outside with Tommy, the neighbour’s boy, anymore or whether he would have to help his dad with the hay or the cows or the farmland.

Oliver worried constantly.

About whether Thea had something to eat, about whether she was cold, about whether she was safe. She was so tiny and so fragile, his small baby sister. His world.

Winter would come soon and Oliver knew he needed to get little Thea and him something other to sleep on than the hay in empty barns, that felt too close to home, or an itchy, squeaky bed in a dubious pub, when he had enough money saved from what work he could find.

He needed to find a more stable work, work, that would be long-term and that would take Thea off the dirty streets and into a warm, secure room, especially with the winter coming, and get her more meat on the bones.

Oliver couldn’t stop worrying.

Thea didn’t have her parents anymore, only him, and he needed to do a better job, he needed to find better work, to be a better brother, to be a better… _him_.

 

***

 

**England, February 1805**

The first time Oliver got hurt, he was five years old.

He had been running around the fields all day, joyful, self-absorbed in a day dream, adventures and cruises, where the barn was a haunted house and a fortress, the fields a jungle with wild animals or uncharted waters, possessed by that special spark of summer freedom.

It had been a hot, dry, a merciless summer, and he only remembered it, because you could've almost seen the shimmering heat.

Oliver had stumbled on one of his cruises through time and space, and split open his big toe on some nasty pebble and started to cry miserably, hobbling home, to mommy, to her hugs and antiseptic creams and making-it-better-kisses.

When Oliver got hurt this time, it wasn’t for the tripping over some mean pebbles blocking the path to a hidden treasure; it was intended, it was mean, brutal, cutting, wrenching, tearing. But it was alright.

He had finally found a farm where he could work in exchange for a tiny room under the roof of the farm house, where he and Thea could sleep, and life was good. It wasn’t easy, wasn’t nice and fair to him, but it provided protection to Thea, regular meals, safe grounds for her to play and grow up, and the farmer’s wife had a soft spot for the little girl and Oliver loved her for it.

Everything was alright, as long as his baby sister was safe and happy. Even bloody backs and black eyes and nasty words and broken bones.

He would always choose a little pain over the fear and panic of whether Thea would make it another day in the streets.

 

***

 

**England, 1806**

It was all his fault, all his fault, all his fault. It was a mantra in Oliver's head, a loop, that drove him mad, pushed him over the edge of that slumbering rage that shimmered in him since that fateful day that turned home into hell.

All his fault.

Why hadn't he been more careful, why had he let his let his guard slip, why hadn't he been more watchful, more wary, why hadn't he done _more_! It had been his one responsibility, his one job, his only job.

He should've listened more to the talks of the other workers, should've listened to his gut, shouldn't have shrugged off the bad feeling about the master and his dubious new friends.

And now she was gone. Just.... gone.

Like the wind, in a blink, suddenly, out of the blue.

And from one moment to the other Oliver's world turned upside down, left a sour taste on his tongue and a twisted, splintered heart.

He just saw red and stopped and snapped.

 

***

 

**Russia, 1808**

He was angry, just so, so angry, screaming in rage and agony and tearing apart everything that was in his way. Again. Gone, again... always a step ahead.

Oh, they would suffer. He would find them and, god, he would make them _suffer_ for what they had done and he wouldn't ever stop until he had found his sister, even if he would have to tear the whole world apart.

 

***

 

**China, 1809**

Instead of rage and madness, coldness and calculation slowly found its place in Oliver's mind.

He wasn't leaving the rage and fury behind, that fueled his mission to bring home his lost sister, it was adding to it. Instead of aimless rage there was calculation now, destruction in its most precise, deadly way.

He wasn't lost in his pain anymore, he used it. Weaponized it.

Weaponized himself.

There was only one goal now and all the consequences would be damned.


End file.
